Answer:
Explanation:
Adding 5 m to the width of a rectangle makes it a square with area 144 m². You want the length and width of the original rectangle.
Area
The formula for the area of a square is ...
A = s²
The side length of the square formed from the rectangle is ...
144 = s²
√144 = s = 12 . . . . . meters
Rectangle
The length of the rectangle is unchanged when it is made into the square, so the length is 12 m.
The width of the rectangle had 5 m added to make it 12 m, so the width of the rectangle is 7 m.
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Additional comment
The given relation between length and width is given as L = 2W -2. It is true that 12 = 2(7) -2, but that is not needed in order to solve this problem. It does serve as a check on our answer.